<wall of text about skillz and -w->
i came to tribes a bit later than the original crew and really only played comp at a decent level long after NuTz had died and -w- was like 34 wins and like 2 losses or something
i started a team and tried my best to contact any team that would play us, and had a little success until i managed to get both -w- and THB to have weekly scrims against us
-w- was the best team i dealt with when it came to the behind the scenes stuff - arranging times, dealing with waiting if we didn't have enough people, etc. the -w- guys never made us feel like we were terrible newbies, even when we lost 0-8 they were super polite and even offered us suggestions of what to change, etc
THB, KoV and other teams were at times difficult to deal with - maybe not entirely from the leadership - but it often felt like they were just being patronizing and lowering themselves to playing a worse team and it was a waste of their time. maybe i was reading too much into it, but skillz and the -w- guys always felt more welcoming and helpful.
skillz was also the best team leader i've ever seen at adjusting strategies mid-game to change something that wasn't working into something that did.
after a few months of weekly scrims vs -w-, we actually learned a few things and had a couple of games where we got an early lead. i clearly remember a SB scrim where we went up 4-0 in the first like 8 minutes and i was feeling really cocky. to this day im still not sure what -w- changed, but 10 minutes later they'd beaten us 8-4. that happened a few times - we'd go up by a cap or two, and then skillz would see what wasn't working, change it, and we'd lose 8-2 or whatever.
regarding the cheating stuff, i know NuTz was shady but -w- always wanted to prove they were legit and were always, 100% of the time willing to share their demos to prove it.
i remember one scrim vs them, it was CoN and i was sure that azarus what cheating. like, positive. he was raining down mortars and hitting shots i couldn't believe. i thought i'd be sneaky and ask him for his demo, convinced that he wouldn't provide it. i messaged him all nice like 'oh hey man you played great that game, can you send me your demo so i can learn some of those spam points?'
he sent me his demo without any hesitation and within 2 minutes i knew i was completely wrong. shots that looked shady to me were easily explained from his perspective. i felt like an idiot and an asshole. we became FB buddies and kept in touch forever. not sure if he knows that our friendship is based on me thinking he was a hacker
later on, after base comp had long died and it was only LT, skillz used to host sunday night base pickups and was able to rally so many people to play, it was awesome. if he didn't show up one weekend, only half the people would show up and it would die out after 1-2 games. if he did, it would go on for 4-5 hours. skillz put a lot of work into getting everyone back and hyped up to play.
i have nothing but respect for skillz. he may be loud at times, he may be a bit cocky about tribes - but he was a great capt, a great guy and contributed more to the longevity of base than anyone i can think of
skillzy
my t1 brolies
base
LT
</end wall of text>
gruv out